It is amazing, in this racially enlightened century, that we still see members of the US Congress demonising an ethnic group. Yet that is what happened when the US Senate adopted a provision in its immigration Bill singling out Indian and Indian-American information technology (IT) companies that have operations in the US for punitive restrictions on H-1B work visas. By contrast, the legislation expanded access to the visa to others in the technology industry.Indian and Indian-American (collectively "Indian" below) IT businesses are being scapegoated for abuse of the visa programme - using it for cheap, immobile labour - that actually pervades the entire industry. Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat who was one of the "gang of eight" senators who oversaw the Bill, accused Indian businesses of usurping the programme. His Democratic Senate colleague Charles Schumer of New York even used the term "chop shops" in referring to Indian employers.The word "Indian", of course, doesn't appear in t

Norman Matloff

Norman Matloff

Norman Matloff

Norman Matloff: Blaming Infosys in Washington